Marva J. Gibbs (Director)
Marva J. Gibbs earned a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts- Acting from Howard University and an M.F.A. in Film and Electronic Media from American University. She is an actor, writer, director and producer of stage plays and short films. She is also a theater arts/acting teacher. She has taught theater arts at various schools in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area for sixteen years, and produced several K-12 productions that exposed many students and their families to the performing arts for the first time. She has taken her work around the globe, facilitating theatre arts workshops in Jamaica, The Dominican Republic, Amsterdam, and Nairobi Kenya. She is excited to share her love for performing arts with the JLES community.
Octavia Renee Wolf (Director)
Octavia Renee Wolf received her B.A. from Longwood University in 2011 and her M.Ed. from Johns Hopkins University in May of 2022. Mrs. Wolf’s teaching career officially began in 2014 when she was selected for the Teach for America D.C. Region Corps to serve at West Education Campus as a middle school special education teacher. In 2017, she and Bresean Jenkins launched a comprehensive performance arts program at West Education Campus to address the lack of music and theatre education opportunities within the community. The program has since become a critical part of the school’s identity and its proceeds fund many enrichment opportunities for scholars and families. Mrs. Wolf has co-directed and produced “The Wiz”, “Annie Jr.”, “Lion King Jr.” and is excited to be a part of “Aladdin Jr.” under the school’s new name, John Lewis Elementary. When she is not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Joshua and their two cats, Mozart and Shuri.
Michele Tearney Schooler (ECE Director)
Ms. Schooler has served the West community for the past 24 years (and counting) as an Early Childhood Education teacher. She has always had a love for teaching and at the young age of three began teaching her first class comprising one student, her Great-Grandmother. She received her B.S. in Psychology from Howard University, her M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction in Early Childhood Education from National-Louis University, and is nearing completion of her M.A. in Innovative Early Childhood Education from University of Colorado Denver and the Boulder Journey School. Her philosophy of education is deeply rooted in Reggio Emilia with the belief that all children are fully capable and competent learners who possess a natural curiosity about the world. She strives everyday to be a guide and resource to her students and to pique their curiosity about learning. Ms. Schooler has an equal love for dancing. She began taking dance classes in elementary school and has studied tap, jazz, ballet, flamenco, salsa, Hawaiian Hula and bellydance. She joined and has performed in the DMV with the Bellydance Troup Soul Hips. She has served as an ECE choreographer for two of West Education Campus’s musical theater productions: The Lion King Jr. and Aladdin Jr.
